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I live in a small town and my choices are limited for hardwood flooring. I can go to a lumber dealer 90 miles away and get all kinds of domestic species, but then you have to process it. There would be more waste with flooring. Going price at Home depot is $5.58 for walnut and $2.99 sq.ft. for birch. It's about $100.00 per 19 sq. ft. box. Home Depot is about 40 miles. I don't have a planer or jointer. So two questions is worth while? Any one else doing this. I don't do pallets.
Anything thats prefinished would require planing to remove that finish. If its all you have, I suppose itd work but id also look at cutting and air drying local timber.
George, there is a turning club in Topeka and one in Manhattan. I would bet that if you got in contact with the one in Manhattan you could find some folks who would be able to teach you a little bit about finding wood. The reason I know that is we had Tom Boley, the president of that club demo for our club in Co. Springs ... and I talked to him on the phone later. He told me about some wood he had gotten from the local landfill. Tom is very knowledgeable ... and a very good demonstrator.
George, you may know this, but even if it isn't pre-finished, 3/4" solid hardwood flooring is sold pre-milled on three sides for installation. So, apart from waste of the T&G on the edges, you'd have to plane or joint off the bottom contour in order to have a flat surface to work with. Your working thickness would be only about 5/8".
I second Gary's recommendation to call or email Tom Boley in Manhattan, KS for ideas on sourcing. Terrific guy, and always willing to help fellow turners. Here's his website for contact info: http://www.redoakhollow.com/
Have you considered getting a lunchbox planer? With a sled you can joint boards on a table saw.
George,
I have used scraps from flooring on segmented objects. I also plane the finish off the top, you could probably get by using TS. I cut the segments with the top down, and trun the bottom grooves off after installed on the lower ring. I build up ring at a time. You may be able to glue up a ring without removing the finish and then surface the finished side on a home made disk sander at your lathe. Glue it and then cut the bottom as above.
Good luck
Bob
PS.
I have been using thin stock for rings, so another approach would be to rip the flooring to Od - Id width and then rip in have to make thin stock, you would have two finished surface that you could then touch up on disk sander and then turn off the top finish, and the bottom groves.
I have a ton of flooring scraps that I often laminate to make bigger stock for projects where the joints don't matter. A number of years ago I made a whole pile of blanks from flooring for christmas tree ornaments with a combination of old flooring, some colored veneers, and thin stock of contrasting wood. To make stock for spindle turning (not exactly what you asked, I know) you need a planer (or a plane and some upper body strength) to take the grooves off the bottom of the flooring for internal layers. On the outside you can just orient the boards with the flat surface as the glue surface. You can also leave the T&G edges on and just turn them off later. Any flooring installer would probably be happy to give you a pile of non-prefinished cut-offs and culls.
If you have to buy the flooring you're probably better off just mail ordering wood and having it shipped. Truck freight is pretty cheap for quantities of a couple hundred BF, UPS isn't prohibitive for small quantities as long as they are under 8 ft.
First thing I would do is recon any local dealers trash dumpsters. Try to et some scraps to play with and see if it is worth messing with. Do it during their work hours, if anyone asks, tell them why, they might offer to save some for you. Years ago Japanese motorcycles came in wood crates, fancy wood from the Far East, I knew the dealers and they took their crates to the dump on Fridays, so on Thursdays I showed up and collected what I wanted. They even let me use their electricity for my chainsaw. That was over 20 years ago, I still have some of that wood.
George, I grew up in Central Kansas (Great Bend) and understand your needing to look for wood. For turning wood, don't discount the local woods, elm and osage orange can be quite spectacular. Lumber yards aren't the ideal place for turning wood, but can be for segmented work. I think using hardwood flooring would be expensive and labor intensive to plane. I used to get walnut and cherry from a sawmill in St. Marys, KS. Much cheaper and thicker pieces than the lumber yard. Keep an eye out for the tree trimmers - great source for wood.
Most lumber yards sell milled wood so it may be work a nice drive to stock up. You may also find some 8/4 or 12/4 hardwoods for some bowls.
Thanks to all you woodturners for responding to my wood concerns. I have now managed to secure some small scraps and cutoffs to make some some projects. Under a separate thread, I will show my latest drawing for a small segmented project. George Troy
Hi, George. I am Tom Boley, the one a couple of the folks mentioned. Where in Central Kansas are you? I started Flint Hills Woodturners in Manhattan two and a half years ago. If it is turning wood you want, we have a couple of pretty good sources here. For kiln-dried wood, the best source I have found for 4/4 to 16/4 is Roberson Lumber at the east side of Silver Lake. For fresh cut tree trunks and big branch wood, the Manhattan dump, also known as the Transfer Station, keeps feeding a pile of wood out in the center of their gravel lot for whoever wants to go in with a chain saw and cut it up. Let me know if you are close enough and have any interest in the Manhattan club. We meet the first Sat of the month and members come from both Abilene and Salina.